challenge. ♪ >> it is an amazing spot. it is a state of the art center. >> is beautiful. quarkrights i would like to come here and join them >> good morning, today is wednesday, january 16th, 2013. this is the regular meeting of the building inspection commission. i would like to remind everyone for turn off all of the electronic devices the first item on the agenda is roll call.

>> president mccarthy? >> here. >> clinch? >> here. president mar is excused. >> mccray. >> here. >> melgar. >> walker? >> i am medicated very well. >> congratulations to supervisors on their elections. in january 2013, the state

increased the fee for business licenses by one dollar, with most of the funds to come to the city and council to defray the costs and acts of service and to educate small businesses on action steps to achieve accessibility compliance. dbi is meeting with the office of small business to determine the most appropriate use of these very limited funds. and which are the result of passage of senate bill, 1186 by the state legislature last september so that is something that is important to us based on the conversations in the past. >> acting director, director and i have recently met with the office of small business to executive director to discuss ongoing compliance issues around the number of vacant commercial storefronts. >> it does not appear that it could effectively address, vacant storefronts especially

in buildings otherwise occupied. we remain available for follow up discussions on these issues. these conversations are helpful and we obviously can't accomplish the goals all of the time. but at least the communication we can come up with creative ways of assisting these issues to the department. >> dbi along with other departments is participating in the data survey, at the request of small business and the mayor's office of economic workforce development that identifies and provides important details to the opening of small businesses, within san francisco. once all of the survey data are gathered, the city may design and launch an on-line portal, which goal would be to provide the interests in starting a new small business and require information and action steps, and required the information and action steps. thanks to mccanty in the information services as well as

tony to assemble the critical information. special thanks to thomas of the building department inspection division and dan frost of the electrical division who received letters of appreciation from dbi customers. thank you for their good work there. we also convey our heart-felt sympathies and the family of former staffer, ray louy on the passing of his father paul, and a much reported engineer who added significantly to san francisco throughout his lifetime. so our condolences to his family. thanks to all, to those who were able to attend the dbi holiday party in december. we had a terrific turn out of staff and family and we loved having all of the children there at the party. my child had a melt down about not getting a tie. we had to take him out early. >> a special thanks to the team

of volunteers that included a staff from all of the divisions for making this event such a success as well as to tom huoy and. dbi managers who donated personally to put this party on and so we greatly appreciate that and it is a good morale and it was a special effort on your behalf to do this. thank you tom and your senior management. and thanks to everybody who attended that. >> madam secretary i would like to pass it back to you. >> any public comment on the president's announcements >> seeing none, item three. general public comment, the bic will take public comment on matters within the commission's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda. >> if i may before, the members of the public come to make the comments, i would like to read into the record, you may make comment for a period of time

not-to-exceed 3 minutes, the speakers shall address as a whole is it not the individual personnel or the individual. first speaker. >> my robert davis and i live in the bay view, 91924 and i would like to ask that we talk this morning about some items one of them is an emergency demolition order for four properties on the corner of thorton and third the buildings are still there, more trash and empty tires and more stuff. i would like to ask if we could get an update on the open notices and violation of the open director's hearing and i put together a spread sheet from the information from the dbi back in november about open notices and the number has gone up from 5700 to over 6200. and just showed you here, what those notices are and all of the, all of the descriptions. and then i put them on another

spread sheet on the back. and i ranked them by, number of open notices and violation descriptions. and i would also like maybe to get an update on the open director's hearings, both the ones that are just open and the one that have been decided in the city that had never gone anywhere. there are aggregate about 250 of those. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> madam secretary, i see none. >> if there is no further general public comment. item number four. update on implementation of local requirements sb 1186, certified access specialist on the ada out reach program. >> good morning, president mccarthy and commissioners i am the grekter of office of small business, thank you for the

invitation to come and make a presentation to you this morning, there are three components which i will walk through with you, first is through the neighborhoods program we do have and recently launched and acting director tom huey was at the press conference and this information and an out reach program to work to increase businesses, awareness around disability access requirements and what can be done to help them and the system. and then we have sb 1186 and of course, supervisor david chui's legislation that have been implemented. so first to give you just information with program that we have with invest in neighborhoods. the funds have been captured through the ssshines program

and it is a small amount of money, so we are targeting first in districts four, districts one and along geary boulevard and china town and so those are three districts in the invest in neighborhoods program. we are going to be working to get the ada out reach. the out reach that we partnered with aand d, asian neighborhood design and they helped us design this brochure as part of our... it functions as two things as part of the out reach with the ada out reach program and also as a brochure that property owners are required to provide to their tenants knew or when they renew their lease. >> there are two structures with the out reach program with asian neighborhood design. they go door-to-door in the targeted areas and talk to business owners, and we are trying this approach because we have seen that the city goes in and starts talking to business owners and they are sort of

kind of a blank wall that happens and the listening, they tend to shut down and are intimidated and we are trying the approach of having a third party entity that is not government going in and having a conversation with the business owner. and so working with the business owner, and walking or doing an on-site sort of immediate kind of overview and not a detailed inspection. so things like if there is the garbage can next to the toilet in the bathroom informing them to move that. so if it is really well and relatively easy medium level barriers and we have those identified, and some samples identified in the brochure. and then asian neighborhood design will work with the property owner. if it is high-level barriers and then it may involve some

construction-related activity that might require permits from your department, and then it is immediately referred to a certified or the recommendation is for the business to get a certified access specialist opinion on the correct remediation. we don't have the funds to fund yet the cast inspection, but really encouraged the business owner to take that direction. so often, i think that many business owners are intimidated in terms of when they hear a disability access and improvements and think it is going to be a lot money and a lot of improvements and may not understand the nuances in relationship to the law of what is actually required and what is readily achievable, and so forth. >> so that is a new program that we launched right at the end of the year. and then, next sb 1186 to start off with, so as commission president mccarthy mentioned about one of the requirements

of sb 1186 is the requirement of each municipality to collect a dollar with a business regular sleighsing or a license. >> there is a series of documents i have areached for you, right after... the treasures office has revised the business registration for new businesses to include this information and to have a statement on the back about sb1186 and why there is the additional, the dollar being collected and to do a reminder to businesses about their responsibility for ada compliance. and i am in conversation, this the notice comes directly from sb 1186, the law, which is on the tax and treasurer's form, so i am in conversation with them to also include our departments as a resource as well. so, hopefully that will take place. so just wanted to let you know.

so as director mccarthy or commissioner mccarthy mentioned there is this dollar collected and we roughly have about 80,000 businesses registered in the city. and so, 70 percent of that of the dollar is to stay in the local municipality, 65, 5 percent goes to the administration of handling the funds. and then 65 percent is to go towards past inspections and helping businesses do their construction related activities. the requirements and any kind of education and out reach. so i think that it is written pretty broadly, so i think to allow municipalities to sort of develop their own means of how they wanted to administrator the funding. and so, we will be working on that with your department

together. and so, roughly that is about 52,000 dollars. should every business pay that dollar. the tax and treasury's office did let us know that with some businesses if they are just in automatic mode, they may not and they may just issue their renewals with the current business registration amount and so, for the on-line renewals we will automatically capture that dollar but any checks that are mailed in may not. they may or may not see the new dollar requirement. and so, they have kind of made an internal determination that depending on the degree we may or may not be able to company tur that dollar. with this new program, and i am

really appreciative because i think as you have heard from small businesses, small businesses were the ones that really made this recommendation to the state to put it into a law. >> next, i have provided for you what i think is a really good summation of sb 1186 for you to take a look at. a few things that i want to highlight that are small business related is that on page 3 and this is the title is lexology and it is from a particular individual who has done a lawyer who has done the summation of the bill. so, there are two ways in which there is going to be some reduction of statutory damages and the first one is if a qualified defend ant who has received a notice does remediation within 60 days,

then there is the potential to reduce the liability and the statutory damages from $4,000 per issue, to $1,000 per issue. so it helps to reduce, some of the statutory damages for small businesses. and too on page 4 two things that i wanted to highlight also for your department, is items c. so there are certain, and they provide a list of four things that four things, that businesses that they fall within one of these four things would qualify for those reduction of statutory damages. and item c is a structured area of a business premise where the alleged violation occurred where the new construction or the improvement was approved by

past inspection by the local building department permits on or after january 1 of 2008 and before january 1, 2016. and there were no modifications or alterations to those affected areas, since the inspection incured. there were none affected with the compliance since that inspection. those two things are really in there and to acknowledge your department's ex-per expertise and the department is going to have cast inspectors and so it is part of the inspection. and then there is now, a new definition for a small business and it is a business falls within this definition of a new

small business, again, there is the ability for the reduction of statutory damages and that is if a business has fewer than 25 employees and if it is gross revenue is $3.5 million or less. that is some assistance but it does not effect. usually the higher cost in settling the lawsuit. lastly a commercial, in the commercial lease, the land lords similar to david, the landlord is going to be required to provide some notification as to whether the property has undergone an appropriate cast inspection or not those are i think, the joint highlights between our

two departments. from sb 1186 but there is more there for you to read. and then lastly, for david chui, it was enacted january 1, where property owners are required to let potential leasees to know, excuse me, first the property owners are to either one, bring their entrances in rest rooms into compliance or make sure that they notify the perspective tenants that the business, the commercial space may not be in, you know, be in compliance and relationship to disability access. and then when it is time to engage in a new lease, or renew a lease, they do need to have a

document that both entities sign i thought that i had did a printout. but i did do a printout of chapter 38. and there is a really good template form for the property owners to use. and we have taken this and made it into a form and we have that on our website for property owners. to be able to access and they are required with the new leasee, or renewing their lease, a brochure from our office, which again, i pointed out to you, just to give them a little bit more information about disability access to requirements some of the laws, things to be looking at and then, of course, the resources that are there, that are available to them. and then the last component of supervisor david chui's

regulation is just in regards to your office and i know that you have already this was under-way prior to january 1. but, is to have a priority permit processing, for businesses that want, that are coming in to do, disability access for remediation and improvements to the property. with that, i think that is a quick summation and i am happy to take any questions. >> commissioner walker has questions for you, thank you for that presentation. >> thank you so much for all of this work, a lot of us have heard from small businesses being affected by some of these lawsuits, so this is really helpful. i believe you were involved also around our seismic mandatory program that we are likely going to be putting forward shortly and it seems

like this program would tie-in really well with it. as because those are up grades that will happen primarily on the ground floor. so, i think that it would be really good to tie these two together. most of these buildings that we are talking about with the seismic program. they are older and probably it is good for you to be tied into that. >> between our two department and your staff we have a close working relationship and understand, and the connection between what our two departments do around this issue and really i want to extend my appreciation to your staff, i think very sincere understanding to what small

businesses incur around disability access. >> right. and the program that we have is what we have determined in some just a rough study of these buildings is mostly it is not going to be displacing temporarily housing, but rather commercial spaces and mostly small businesses. so, i think that it gets us the opportunity to bring them up to ada code and make sure that the disruption is minimal. so that would be great. >> thank you for doing that. >> yes. >> happy to work with you on that. >> commissioner? >> hi, thank you for being here. this is awesome. and great progress in a short time. so, i am wondering what the plan is for out reach. you know, to make sure that a small businesses know what is going on with all of this, and particularly i am worried about chinese-speaking and spanish-speaking businesses who may not understand all of the technical stuff in english so

well. and i am wondering if there has been any budgets set aside to make that happen for the printing of these great brochures or for, you know, people to talk to? or any coordination with owd or the corridor program, so if you can talk about that a little bit? >> yes, so, one is we are working with all of our neighborhood economic development organizations. so our non-profits that do business assistance, so, renaissance, meta woman's initiative, and lacasina and so we have set a requirement as part of the cbgfunding is to insure that their clients receive information about, you know, preparing themselves informing their clients about disability access and going into commercial space and what they need to know about the law and the responsibilities but also how to assess the space, perhaps negotiate a lease and

then make sure that the clients know that the property owner needs to be providing them this information. the brochures that we have right now is we also have them in spanish and chinese. and so just this past weekend, north east federal credit union put on a workshop in china town and it was great. we had 68 attendee and so one step is through our partnership with our neighborhood economic development organization. it is up to them in terms of how they want to construct the education either through a workshop or one on one. through their business consultation. so that is one step that we are doing. as i said, with invest in neighborhoods which is part of the corridor program, there are 24 corridors that are identified in the invest in the neighborhood program. and we have when i say

corridors, so in district four, we have three corridors, that are in this particular program where we do have individuals going door-to-door to the businesses. geary street in district one and china town is what we call the next corridor area. so, those are the areas right now where we are targeting doing the door-to-door out reach with this brochure. and then, you know, as we can continue to increase any funding, then, you will do more on the ground of out reach. >> commissioner lee? >> thank you. >> i like to talk about more about the actual door-to-door out reach and how that happens. the reason why i am asking is that a lot of the small business that i have talked to already, they are already pretty fearful when somebody walks in and starts talking about ada but they are going to

say that guy is a lot of money or i am going to cost me money to do something. so how does the asian neighborhood design team, what do they offer or what do they say? how do they relieve any anxieties that the business own are may have? and what type of resources do they offer? i mean do they refer them to other people? or what kind of information do they pass out? >> right. so, so, they have the brochure, and then, and perhaps, you know, i should have them come and give you a presentation, i actually have not gone in with them when they have done the out reach. but they do go in and approach the business, and let them know that there are individuals that are, know that you out doing lawsuits, the city has partnered with them to reach

out to businesses, to help, you know, inform them, protect them. and if they are or if they would like a free, sort of walk through at that given time, to look around, you know, to walk with the property owner or the business owner, and so they offer that. and then, say, you know, if you do want a full free assessment or if there are d not free assessment but if you want to businesses that are in these corridors area, or in the corridor area, they can qualify for some funding to do the remediation. >> so i think that that is sort of the carat is that they could qualify for remediation and if they are interested in accessing that funding there is a form to fill out so that we have the documentation in terms

of administer the funding. as long as it is not the high level, remediation, which high level would be if there are two or three steps going up into a business. but it is lower, or, you know, maybe the entryway might need just a slight ramp or a door modification or, you know, a power button, those kinds of recommendations. then, asian neighborhood design is able to do that and that is the type of thing that those kinds of ininstruction related improvements are what can be our funding can provide. for the businesses to be able to access. >> did i... >> i think that what i am concerned about is that their approach is what do they offer?